Editorial: 10th casino license may finally find a home  really

Tuesday

By the end of the year we’ll find out which community — Rosemont, Des Plaines or Waukegan — will hit the jackpot and be named the home to the long-dormant 10th Illinois gambling license.

By the end of the year we’ll find out which community — Rosemont, Des Plaines or Waukegan — will hit the jackpot and be named the home to the long-dormant 10th Illinois gambling license.

If those three communities sound familiar in casino talks, it’s because they are. They were the finalists for a license in 2004, which shows how much they meet the criteria the Illinois Gaming Board has set up or how much the deck has been stacked in their favor all along.

The Gaming Board heard proposals from those communities Tuesday, and although it looks as if this long, ugly process soon will be over, we’re not betting on it.

East Dubuque’s Silver Eagle casino was one of the original 10 riverboats, but couldn’t compete with gambling options just across the Mississippi River in Iowa. The Silver Eagle earned the least of the 10 riverboats, and by 1997 it was shut down.

Enter Rosemont. In 1999, the owners of the Silver Eagle license wanted to move to Rosemont as the Emerald Casino. Two years later the Gaming Board revoked the license because it said Emerald investors were linked to organized crime. A year after that, Emerald went into U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

In 2003, Emerald and the Gaming Board reached a deal that would allow the license to be auctioned, which would have allowed Emerald to pay off its creditors.

In 2004, the Gaming Board, against the recommendation of its staff, decided to give the license to Isle of Capri for a casino in Rosemont. That led Gov. Rod Blagojevich to appoint a former deputy U.S. attorney general to check out the Rosemont deal. Attorney General Lisa Madigan didn’t like the selection, either. She brought up concerns about organized crime.

Senate President Emil Jones, upset that no community from the south suburbs was among the finalists, pushed a measure through a Senate committee that would have allowed the governor to replace Gaming Board members immediately.

Lawsuits were filed because of the process. They’ve only recently been resolved, opening the door for this round of bidding, and lo and behold, we have the same three finalists we had four years ago. Coincidence? What are the odds?

Madigan still has concerns about Rosemont.

“While I appreciate the need for the 10th casino license to be put to work for the people of the state, I insist that any decision to award this license must be focused on the integrity of the location and operator,” Madigan said in a statement. “I remain concerned about Rosemont as a location for the 10th casino license and believe that each of the bidders and proposed locations must be closely scrutinized by the IGB and its investigators.

“I have raised extensive concerns about Rosemont in the past. As the IGB scrutinizes the bids, I expect that they will, in the most transparent way possible, fully explain to the public how they are addressing those concerns, including Rosemont’s past conduct in the Emerald casino matter.”

Working in Rosemont’s favor is that its bid came in at $435 million. Waukegan’s bid was second at $225 million and Des Plaines’ bid was for $100 million. However, they can up the ante when they make their pitches to the Gaming Board.

There’s a lot of money at stake, but we caution folks from getting too giddy about this infusion of cash into the state treasury. Gambling is not a solution to the state’s long-term money problems.

Gambling revenues are down across the nation. Las Vegas, gambling’s mecca, has seen its casinos’ revenues decline for eight straight months. Unemployment in the Las Vegas metro area is 7.1 percent, above the national average of 6.5 percent.

In Illinois, gambling revenues have been down all year, including a 25.6 percent decline in October.

The original intent of gambling in Illinois was to help economically disadvantaged communities, which would make Waukegan the most worthy of the three finalists, but the decision always seems to come down to Rosemont.

Madigan is right to say transparency is needed to reassure a skeptical public. If there’s any question about the Gaming Board’s decision, the whole process will be a bust — again.

Rockford Register Star

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